By Natsuki Iida | Member of Advocacy Team
To all of you who have always supported us, here is the latest report on the Uganda Child Soldier Project!
Background: Since 2005, Terra Renaissance has been implementing social reintegration support for vulnerable individuals in Northern Uganda's Gulu District, including former child soldiers, young people born in conflict zones, and the most impoverished.
We've welcomed the 12th group of beneficiaries into our reintegration training program!
Since last year, we have been working with Congolese NGO (APRu) to call for the demobilization and repatriation of LRA soldiers (many of whom are former child soldiers) who remain in neighboring countries.
To encourage the return of former child soldiers, we have been searching for their families in Uganda while also sending message videos assuring them that pathways for social reintegration exist and that they will not be detained by the Ugandan government upon return.
Former child soldiers who had once received our support and had achieved self-reliance played a pivotal role in this endeavor.
For the former child soldiers who remained in neighboring countries, a significant deterrent to their return was the fear of unemployment, inability to support their families, and lack of acceptance from their communities upon their return to Uganda. While they were distrustful of the words of the Ugandan government forces and officials with whom they had once been in conflict, the words of their former comrades, Terra Renaissance graduates, resonated with them and encouraged their return. Witnessing their former comrades working and rebuilding their lives in local villages, they took a step towards social reintegration, filled with hope.
As a result, 141 individuals (former child soldiers and their family members) who were residing in neighboring countries were able to return to Uganda. This marks the largest-scale repatriation since 2006 when cease-fire agreement between LRA and the government of Uganda.
On March 18, 2024, 55 former child soldiers and their families who had returned from Congo gathered at Terra Renaissance's social reintegration support center in Gulu, northern Uganda, for an orientation session on social reintegration training. They will take their first steps toward reintegration into society through vocational training in tailoring and carpentry, literacy education, and psychosocial support.
The exact number of former child soldiers who were abducted in Uganda and are still held captive by the LRA in neighboring countries is unknown. However, two LRA units have been demobilized as a result of the last repatriation support. It is believed that the remaining LRA units, including their leader Joseph Kony, his family, and close associates, are hiding in neighboring South Sudan (Darfur region). One of Africa's longest-running conflicts, the LRA conflict, is now nearing its end.
Terra Renaissance is committed to the reintegration of all former child soldiers who were held captive by the LRA and working towards the end of the LRA conflict to ensure that child recruitment never happens again.
We kindly ask for your continued support.
Links:
By Natsuki Iida | Member of Advocacy Team
By Channie Cheung | Member of Advocacy Team
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